Wow.

It has literally been forever since I have posted; my apologies to those few and far between people who actually take the time to read this measly thing. I guess I should try and cover everything as briefly yet completely as I can.

Classes are a lot better this semester. I am taking 15 credit hours, with four attendance classes and one online class. I am enjoying the subject matter of my courses far more than I did last semester, however, my classes are more difficult which means more homework. I am taking mostly gen-eds (with one graduate level course), but they are higher level gen-eds or whatever. Classes include:
Educational Leadership: Mondays and Wednesdays at freaking 7:30am. Ridiculous. My professor lectures like she is giving a speech, meaning she just brushes over topics in a well-versed manner that does not explain anything, so we are forced to read the textbooks to gain any sort of knowledge about what the class is about. All of her tests are online, which is great, but you would think that because of this factor I wouldn't have to go class...WRONG. Being the clever professor she is, she assigns in-class activities due at the end of the hour so we HAVE to be there. It's usually not that bad, but a lot of them are group projects and I am not a sparkling pearl at 7:30 in the morning...
Nutrition: It's online, so there's really not much to talk about...I am really glad it's online because it's the stupidest class ever; my physiology majoring RA even thinks so...Besides the complete and utter less than lack of motivation to do anything associated with that "class," everything is fine.
Mythology: My favorite class! The subject matter is so interesting and my professor is absolutely fabulous. I think I am developing a slight personality-crush on the man, to be honest...But overall, that class is just fantastic.
Language and Culture of Deaf Communities: This class meets Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8:00. Nice that's it's my only class on those days, but Mondays and Wednesdays are really busy for me, so after that class, I am just wiped. The class is taught by the professor I had for my ASL class last semester, which at first I was like, "Oh great..." but now I am really starting to like her. At the beginning of the semester, we had a lady come certify our class to work with the DeafBlind, which was a really neat experience for me and now I am qualified to work with the DeafBlind in either a casual, volunteer, or paid environment. As of now, we watch a lot of videos and have a lot of class discussions (all in ASL), so it's totally chill. The only two things are...1) There is a lot of homework. AND 2) Professor Volk is having us serve 30 hours of volunteer work in the Deaf community and I have yet to find a place to volunteer. The whole class is centered around our service-learning project, so the fact that I haven't found a place to serve yet has really set me back. Being the over-planner that I am, not knowing what I am going to do to serve my 30 hours really scares me. I have roughly two months left to finish 30 hours and all of the work associated with it and it is stressing me out like you wouldn't believe.
English 102: THE. STUPIDEST. CLASS. I. HAVE. EVER. TAKEN! I can't even reiterate that enough. To start, my teacher is a total creeper. Seriously. Tim Meloni is a skinny, hairy, grad student in his late twenties who has the greasiest hair and the longest, yellow finger nails I have ever seen. He says, "OK?" more than any human ever should and he has trouble breathing when he teaches. Speaking of teaching, he has never taught English 102 and he told us on the first day of school that he is going to be learning the material we are learning right along with us. EXCELLENT. He writes cutesy, cheesy poetry that would make any girl swoon...but only enough for him to get in her pants, something of which he probably had no experience of whatsoever. He assigns us ridiculous busy work that will never help us when writing our essays, the main thing our grades are based off of. We recently handed in our first essay, on which I got the highest grade in the class. The girl who sits next to me thinks this is because Tim has a crush on me, mostly because he tends to look at me whenever I am doing anything awkward. I, personally, like to consider that my writing is better than everyone else's in the class (even those who think they are all that by using big words that create a circumvented argument), and I feel like I am not learning anything whatsoever other than to never to take a gen-ed English class ever again; I actually feel like my writing is deteriorating rather than improving, but whatever. Basically I cannot wait until I get into upper-division English classes, even though I am pretty sure they are going to kick my butt...

As far as majors go, I have decided to double (and almost, triple) major. My vowel-infested majors are: Secondary Education with an emphasis in Extended English and Educational Interpreting for American Sign Language (boy that's a mouthful). In addition, I have joined Future Teacher's Club, also know as The Lamest Club on Campus. There are about ten regular members (on a good day) and we basically just sit around and talk or listen to guest speakers from the College of Education. I absolutely love the people in the club and even after my third meeting with them, I feel like we are going to be good friends. FTC is supposed to be a community outreach club for teachers, but they are not doing so well on the outreach aspect. I am trying to get more involved with the club so I can help with that. If you have any good ideas for outreach in the community revolving mostly around students, teachers, administration, or just school in general, please let me know.

Really the last thing I am doing to occupy my time besides class, homework, and FTC is work. I still work at Centennial Hall as an usher and I absolutely love it. UA Presents got another Usher Manager (my boss) this semester and he's totally awesome. His name is Tadj Hodges (I had to add that in there because saying his full name is totally fun!) and he's totally cool. Some of the other ushers and I agree that we like him better than old boss, Sam, which is a big deal because Sam was absolutely fantastic. Speaking of ushers...I am starting to get really close with the student ushers, which is really fun. A lot of the volunteer ushers know me personally now (most of them are teachers or were teachers at one point so they like to talk to me about their experiences and sort of take me under their wing) and I love talking to them; I guess I just have thing for old people. :) I work at Centennial two to three days a week and it's totally chill. Basically I just love my job all-around and I really hope I am in the running to become a manager for next year...

I think that's about all. Things are still going great with the roomie and we have decided to live with each other next year in the same dorm. I still haven't found a solid Christian group to be a part of yet, but I am looking. I haven't been to Ballroom at all this semester because I have been working a lot and have just kind of lost interest, which is a little sad but not too heart-breaking. My elbow is doing a lot better. I am going to physical therapy twice a week and it's pretty much back to normal. I don't think it will ever be completely back to the way it was, but that's to be expected after such an awful break, but what can you do? Basically things here are just good, plain and simple. ;)

Hope you all are doing well and I would be blessed to receive an email telling me how you are and what is going on in your life. (allison.sherer@gmail.com) God Bless. <3